Trump taps financier and donor Phelan to be Navy secretary

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. I believe this was his father:

John Phelan, N.Y.S.E. Chief Who Ushered In New Technology, Is Dead at 81

By William Alden August 6, 2012 11:26 am


Marilynn K. Yee/The New York TimesJohn J. Phelan Jr. at the New York Stock Exchange shortly after being elected as its chairman in 1984.

John J. Phelan Jr., a former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange who introduced computer technology to the Big Board in the 1980s and was widely praised for his calming response to the stock market crash of October 1987, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 81. ... The cause was complications of prostate cancer, his son Peter said.

After the 1987 crash, which shook investors’ confidence in financial markets, Mr. Phelan coolly resisted calls to close the exchange, fearing that it would breed further panic. He rang the closing bell himself. ... “He deserves eternal credit for that,” Felix G. Rohatyn, a longtime investment banker who helped save New York from bankruptcy in the 1970s, told The New York Times on Mr. Phelan’s retirement in 1990. “That was his shining hour.”

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Mr. Phelan was named vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange in 1975, and four years later he led the creation of the New York Futures Exchange, which he ran as chairman.

Mr. Phelan had become a widely respected financial figure by the time he retired, accepting positions on various corporate boards, including that of Merrill Lynch. In recent years he was chairman of Catholic Charities, an organization that serves disadvantaged New Yorkers.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce, and three sons, John, Peter and David.
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A version of this article appears in print on 08/07/2012, on page A17 of the NewYork edition with the headline: John Phelan Jr., Ex-Head Of Big Board, Dies at 81.